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For Scientific American Science quickly, this is Rachel Feldman. No one wants to be a sucker.

But did most of us go too far in our efforts to avoid naivete?

In other words, are we all a little overly cynical?

My guest today is Jemiel Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University.

Also the author of a new book called Hope for Cynics,

the surprising science of human goodness.

He's here today to tell us what the research says about cynicism

and how we can harness the power of hope to live better, happier lives.

Thanks so much for joining us to chat today. It's my pleasure. So what inspired you to write this book? I decided to write a book about cynicism because I was drowning in it. It's a little

bit surprising to people because I've studied things like empathy and kindness for 20 years.

So a lot of people assume that I must walk around just being bliss out by how great humanity is all the time.

But it turns out that like so many people, I often have trouble trusting others.

I sometimes feel like maybe human beings are not that great.

And especially early in the pandemic,

I found myself really feeling pretty gloomy about the state of our species and the state of the

world. And I thought, well, if this is happening to me and imagine how other people feel. So that's,

that's what inspired me to begin this journey. Yeah. Would you tell us a little bit more

...